Hang With Friends

Information

Come on in, pull up a chair!

Picture yourself spending some time with congenial friends, sharing your lives and pictures from your cell phones." They're curious about that cool game, song, movie, camping trip, art show, or other event that fascinated you. You talk about all kinds of stuff, poetry, styles, personal achievements, relationships, and bad days. You can share your inner child, and laugh together. They sympathetically listen to your feelings about serious topics like politics or climate change, even when they don't agree.

Personal validation comes from paying attention to one another, giving more than you get. Everyone respects you and themselves, despite our amazing range of personal tastes and interests. They'll tell you they don't agree with an idea or behavior without implying you're a bad person or somehow deficient. It's an "I'm OK, You're OK" kind of fellowship, where nobody tries to make himself look better by picking on somebody else.

Nobody here is into mind games. A discussion started with a loaded guilt-throwing question will be deleted.

This group is not intended to compete with other groups on topics they cover but to "fill in the cracks." Whenever a discussion dwells at length on a topic for which there's an existing group, we urge you to provide members a link to that group to continue along their tangent.

A comment is a shout-out, which will get lost in a few days, because the comment wall is just a random stack.

Please start a discussion to share stories, photos, and videos. Replies will pop up in your "latest activity" and a conversation can develop from the feelings and thoughts you contributed. Groups are built on discussions.

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My first name is Francis. My dad's middle name was Francis. His dad's first name was Francis, and it went like that for a number of generations. I don't know how many because, at present, I can't find the genealogical tree my mother made.

Francis is the 70th most popular male name in Idaho. Frances is the 35th most popular female name.

I can remember some references to "Francis the Talking Mule" in grade school, because it was a show on TV or radio at the time.

I don't remember that reference bothering me much, but if I would have had children, I would not have given any that name because a lot of people don't seem to like calling me Francis. Some have tried calling me Frank, but I tell them I don't like that name. People also get it confused with the female name.

For a few months when I went to northern Idaho for some schooling, I decided to see how it would go if I went by my middle name, Lynn. When I came back, I went back to Francis because I just found that Lynn didn't do anything for me.

When we were young, my siblings called me Francie. We all called each other their name with ie added on the end.

I also hated my aunts kisses. She was demonstrative, while my family was shy and introverted. We never kissed or hugged, or said I love you. We may have been better off if we had, but my parents showed us love in other ways.

They were very kind. They never called us negative names, never raised their voice to us, and never paddled us. My dad was the kindest man I've ever known.

As far as anyone can trace it, my family has come from agricultural labourers. The best that the 1800s can present is one case of literacy. Like many others, we moved from country to town in the 1900s. I think I remember stories of some 'conshies' on my mother's side during WW1.

It's so easy for the elite to get away with their parasitic lives. As usual they blame anything that's 'other' .

We have a few names that keep getting recycled in our family generation after generation. Among them are Carl, James, and Ross. Ross is actually a surname from my family tree but it has been used as a first and middle name in my family as well.

I had a great-aunt Violet, which sounds sweet, but I always hated getting kissed by her when I was a kid. Her kisses were hard, wet smacks, and I could feel the hair stubble on my cheek from her upper lip. LOL She was always good to me, though.

My name is Joan Melda Denoo. It was supposed to be Janet Melda Denoo, but my cousin was born 6 weeks before me and she carries the name, Janet. My middle name is after my paternal aunt Melda who was a registered nurse, She delivered me in my maternal grandparent's home.

I like both names. I even like the name Denoo, although many people attempt to get me by writing Denod, Denog, Denot, and deNoo. The double "oo" seems strange to those not used to the lowlands of northern Europe.

My grandfather Denoo came to the US in the early 1900s from Belgium. Many of my family served King Leopold in the Congo and many African people have the name, Denoo. I make contact with many of them. One day, I hope we can find a common ancestor, but not yet. I encouraged the Denoo families in Belgium that I visited to read Heart of Darkness by Conrad and the review by Chinua Achebe.

"Conrad projects the image of Africa as "the other world," the antithesis of Europe and therefore of civilization, a place where man's vaunted intelligence and refinement are finally mocked by triumphant beastiality. The book opens on the River Thames, tranquil, resting, peacefully 'at the decline of day after ages of good service done to the race that peopled its banks. 'But the actual story will take place on the River Congo, the very antithesis of the Thames. The River Congo is quite decidedly not a River Emeritus. It has rendered no service and enjoys no old-age pension. We are told that 'Going up that river was like traveling back to the earliest beginnings of the world.'"